I know, I know… It’s May 9th, which means May is already a quarter over and I haven’t posted any sort of April review or even a new story in a few weeks. I’ve been too busy living in heaven.

(you will even see appearances from Brewer greats Rollie Fingers, Brett Wurst, and Cinco)

But several interesting site news: First, I’ve been spending my time not completing house renovations getting the site up and running as a mobile site. Yes, you will soon be able to check the HR Derby standings anytime possible on your mobile devices without having to download all the content and zoom in on the tiny font. Be on the look out for this new feature shortly (who knows, there may be an Android App to follow shortly as well). Second, the month of April took the site’s traffic to over 10,000 views in less than a year. That’s pretty impressive, so thanks to the people who keep coming back. Third, our current owner of the Derby basement, Pick Me A Winner, Bobby, wanted to be better than one other team in the HR Derby at something. So, he suggested I calculate the average home run distance for each team. With some more of my scripting genious, I was able to calculate every teams average home run that updates live at the end of each day and is posted next to your team’s name in the standings. Bad news is that Pick Me A Winner Bobby also has the shortest home run average. Lastly, I got sick of calculating my team’s daily change of position. Thus, I added an additional calculation next to every teams’ current position which shows how many positions your team has moved in the standings lately. Red means you are headed the wrong direction; green signals your team is headed for paydirt.

At the beginning of the first month of baseball is great. Every team is back to a clean slate, every break out player gets to prove that last season wasn’t a fluke, every disappointing player gets to prove that last year was indeed a fluke, every fan gets the chance to say “This is the year, the year that…” my favorite team wins the pennant, my fantasy team takes home the trophy, or my Kings of Cork team finishes in the top-5.

At the end of the first month of baseball, most fans get the chance to say (in their best Cee Lo Green voice) “Forget you…” to the break out player of last season who was suppose to be a top fantasy pick but hasn’t lived up to their hype (I’m looking at you Car-go). Or, “Forget you…” to the power bat that moved to a more hitter friendly ball-park (I’m looking at you Adam Dunn, A-Gon, and Carlos Pena). Or, “Forget you…” to the player who once again could not prove himself worthy of baseball stardom (There’s too many to list here but let’s go with Han-Ram, Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, and Joe Mauer). Most likely, if you have one of these players on a fantasy baseball team or in the Kings of Cork home run derby, your team isn’t doing the greatest and you’ve already exclaimed “Forget you!!!” more than once to your team.

But with every player’s or team’s struggles (what the heck is wrong with the Brew Crew, Mets, Cubs, Twins, Chi-sox, and Bo-sox), there is another player or team living in their moment of glory (please see the Indians, Royals, and Cardinals waving their hands).

Let us pay respect to the month of April by recapping the April Kings Of Cork HomeRun Derby standings:

Ryan Braun – Odds are that if you had the Brew Crew’s Hebrew Hammer, your Kings Of Cork Derby team was not in the bottom half. His 10 home runs were the tops in the Majors at the end of April, and those 10 are already 1/3 of his season total last season. It seems like he is back in 2009 mashing form and half of the top 20 teams at the end of April would have to agree since they are sitting on Braun’s hot bat including the 3rd and 5th place teams of April, Devil Dogs and Behold the Power of Cheese. Will Braun continue his hot streak? A week into May and he has yet to hit a home run since April.

Alfonso Soriano & Lance Berkman – What do these two guys have in common? They are both turning 35 years of age which is the back half of most MLB players’ careers. What else do they both have in common? They both struggled mightily at the plate in 2010. What else do they have in common? They both have figured out that they were getting overpaid for their under achieving performance. At the end of April, Soriano had 1 less HR than Braun (Soriano now leads the Majors with 11) and Berkman had 2 less than Braun but is leading the Majors in Runs Batted In. Four Derby teams started the season with Alfonso and of those four teams, three of them were in the top 10 at the end of April including our month of April leader, Geez. More impressive is that of the 58 teams in 2011, ONE team actually chose the Big Puma… Fat Elvis… Lance Berkman. That team was in 4th at the end of April and was the first official entry into the 2011 Derby (even submitted before mine), The Test Icicles.

Jose Bautista – How dare ye doubt the 2010 home run champ! I know I sure did. I expected him to be a bigger one hit wonder than Los Del Rio. But once again, he is swinging the big stick. And despite being on the bench the first 6 days in May due to injury, Bautista is currently sitting at 10 HR and an amazing 0.524 OBP. Seven Derby teams enlisted the services of Joey Bats and our April Derby leader is, again, one of these teams: The Geez.

Big Poppe Pill Poppers – This Derby team gets his own line for one simple reason… his team is currently the most well rounded team in the derby. He doesn’t have one stand out bat, he has 5 of them. Fielder, Big Tex, Tulo, Quentin, and Chris Young all had 6 or more homers. No other derby team can say that even a week into May. This team may be the team to beat in the first half of the derby.

Remember, the season is long so don’t fret about the month of April or your players who haven’t figured out how to hit the long ball (Aaron Hill, Encarnacion, Alvarez, Aramis Ramirez, Han-Ram, Hart, Longoria, and McGehee, just to name a few). I promise to get more baseball related content posted soon. Until then, enjoy the heat in the Midwest.